IBM Expands Its Digital Marketing Network

IBM, joined by more than 100 business partners, launched the IBM Digital Marketing Network in the cloud to help marketers integrate new marketing services to measure and improve their effectiveness in real time.

Part of IBM's Smarter Commerce initiative, the IBM Digital Marketing Network can syndicate real-time analytics to any marketing service, such as Google Display Network, Doubleclick Search, and Badgeville.

Clients can now monitor real-time activity throughout the network in customized dashboards for e-commerce and mobile, allowing marketers to view how their campaigns are performing across paid, earned, and owned channels.

The network uses a single "gold tag" approach to relay digital data across the cloud in real time to all relevant partner technologies.

The IBM Digital Marketing Network is powered by IBM Digital Marketing Optimization, part of IBM's Cloud Suite for CMOs. The drag-and-drop interface tightly links these services together in as little as two clicks. This approach also eliminates the need to custom integrate each service and eases the burden of managing redundant tags that slow sites down.

IBM Digital Marketing Network customers now have integrated access to more than 100 solutions from certified partners in digital marketing areas, including the following:

• Ad Networks for making targeted ad inventory from numerous sources. IBM Digital Digital Marketing Network partners include Google and Advertising.com.
• Data Management Platforms for enabling the collection of audience intelligence toward better ad relevancy. IBM Digital Marketing Network partners include BlueKai and x+1.
• Demand Side Platforms for buying digital advertising by managing multiple ad exchanges. IBM Digital Marketing Network partners include The Trade Desk and Turn.
• Gamification, for engaging customers with game-style sets of rewards. IBM Digital Marketing Network partners include Badgeville.
• Privacy Management for helping companies and consumers manage data privacy preferences. IBM Digital Marketing Network partners include Evidon.
• Search Marketing for marketing promotion via paid and organic search channels. IBM Digital Marketing Network partners include Doubleclick Search and Marin Software.
• Social Engagement/Loyalty for managing customer engagement via social media or crowd sourced means. IBM Digital Marketing Network partners include Bazaarvoice and CrowdTwist.
• Social Media Marketing for executing marketing via social media channels. IBM Digital Marketing Network partners include Shoutlet.
• Voice of Customer for insight into customer experiences, wants and needs. IBM Digital Marketing Network partners include OpinionLab.

"We continuously look for opportunities to enhance the digital marketing experience for our customers," said Craig Hayman, general manager of industry solutions at IBM, in a statement. "The IBM Digital Marketing Network eliminates the complexity and difficulty involved in placing third-party tags, enabling our clients to improve results and personalize the digital customer experience in real time."

In a related effort, IBM is chairing the drive to establish a new digital marketing industry standard for streamlined tag data management with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

Joined by more than 80 participants from 45 companies, such as Google and Adobe, the W3C issued a draft specification in July and plans to publish the final specification later this year. The specification will rally the industry around a single data model for data collection, resulting in accelerated on-boarding of new, relevant services, reduced IT burden in managing existing services and superior site performance.

"The W3C has progressed this specification very quickly, and the IBM Marketing Network and Digital Marketing Optimization solution are set to embrace this emerging standard," said Todd Moore, director of interoperability and partnerships at IBM, in a statement. "By chairing this committee, IBM joined with other companies who understand that digital marketers desire flexibility, that only open standards can provide, to break through information silos and increase ROI from their marketing efforts."

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